Abstract
The Garden Party is considered as Katherine Mansfield's most frequently anthologized short story. In this fiction story which was published in 1922, Mansfield draws the contrasted painting of childhood and adulthood, its innocence and experience, the upper and lower classes which was prevalent and a dominant factor in the early 20th century in colonial New Zealand. Mansfield ?has long enjoyed a reputation for near-perfection in the art of the short story' (Warren S. Walker, 1957) and even her rival, Virginia Woolf, recognized in her diary that she was ?jealous of her writing.' The story relates to the frantic preparations and aftermath of a garden party held by Laura, Meg and Jose, the three daughters of the Sheridan family. This is a dreamlike day, ?windless, warm and without a cloud', for the upper-class family to raise a marquee and for the daughters to learn how to be perfect party hostesses.
